AI firm joins SIGHT programme to advance cancer detection technology

Innovative Physics has joined forces with academia and healthcare experts at the University of Portsmouth to help progress innovations in cancer detection technology.

Innovative Physics, based in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, has joined the university's SIGHT (Supporting Innovation and Growth in Healthcare Technologies) programme, which aims to bring experts together to enhance the development of healthcare technologies.

The company’s technology uses pattern recognition and artificial intelligence to help detect, identify, and grade radioactive material in the nuclear sector. It has also gained recognition for the use of their technology in other markets such as homeland security, waste, and agriculture.

It has also sought to develop technology that can be used as a medical diagnostic tool to aid clinicians, radiologists and consultants enabling them to classify data quickly and accurately from CT images meaning patients can be diagnosed and treated more quickly and at a lower cost. With demonstrable successes in early clinical trials for lung cancer, where the technology returned results in minutes, the company is hoping its membership of this programme will enable it to engage in further clinical trials and help bring its products to the market.

The SIGHT programme is an ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) funded business support project led by the University of Portsmouth in conjunction with the Wessex Clinical Research Network (CRN) and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

The programme aims to provide SMEs with the insight and specific evidence required to ensure their products meet real, identified market needs along with the necessary guidance and support to enter and expand in new healthcare markets. This includes access to clinicians and patient groups, advice on overcoming regulatory barriers, innovation workshops and financial grant schemes.

Dr Phil Jewell, SIGHT business development and programme manager said: “Many great innovations are probably being lost because people struggle to navigate the development and commercialisation process. The SIGHT programme helps to bridge that gap and provide innovators with the right access and resources to accelerate their entry to market.

“Innovative Physics have some extremely interesting technologies which could prove invaluable in the early detection and management of cancer and our hope is that, through this programme, we can help them fast-track their products and technologies to market and deliver those benefits to many people.”

Victoria Anderson-Matthew, business development officer at Innovative Physics added: “The application of artificial intelligence has endless possibilities in both trials and in clinical diagnosis and to advance the precision and speed of the process. We are confident that our technologies can help make significant inroads in the healthcare sector but, as a relatively small business, it is difficult to overcome the barriers to entering these markets which are often dominated by large multinationals. We hope through our link with SIGHT that we can make a breakthrough into the healthcare sector and realise our ambitions of bringing our potentially ground-breaking technologies to the marketplace.”